youtu.be/H_Nh2UWMv8A
here you go #TEDx 🤦🏼‍♀️

🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯

Small bit of daily joy!

When a Vanguard-class SSBN slips past the Gare Loch into the Clyde, the Ministry of Defence PR apparatus frames it as the relentless triumph of the Continuous At Sea Deterrent (CASD). The operational reality is far darker. This is a scene of institutional brinkmanship, played out in four distinct acts across the British state.

1. Within forty-eight hours, that 16,000-ton boat will vanish below the acoustic layer. Somewhere in the North Atlantic, another Vanguard is waiting. That returning crew has likely been submerged for upwards of 150 to 180 days—double the 90-day patrol limit the submarine was originally designed for. The handover is entirely cryptographic. Once Northwood Headquarters confirms the outbound boat has the watch, the exhausted inbound crew will turn her bow toward Scotland. They will be back in Faslane within a week. But the crew that just left? They are now entombed until late spring 2027.

2. Who actually makes the decision to lock 140 men and women in a steel tube for six months? The operational order comes from Commander Operations (COMOPS) deep inside the permanent joint headquarters at Northwood, specifically the node designated as CTF 345. But the admirals at CTF 345 are not making a strategic choice; they are playing a rigged hand dealt by Westminster. The doctrine of CASD dictates that one boat must always be on patrol. You need four submarines to maintain this mathematically: one on patrol, one training/working up, one in routine maintenance, and one in deep refit. But the math has collapsed. COMOPS is forced to order 200-day patrols because he simply doesn't have the hulls available in the rotation cycle.

3. Why doesn't the government intervene? Because successive governments are the exact architects of the crisis. To understand why that boat is being run into the ground, you have to look at the Treasury and the civil service managerial cartel. In the 2010s, chancellors like George Osborne and Philip Hammond engaged in "fiscal smoothing"—delaying the Dreadnought-class replacement submarines to save in-year accounting costs. Simultaneously, Whitehall utterly failed to manage the sovereign refit infrastructure at Devonport (Babcock’s Dock 9). They outsourced the deep maintenance (the Long Overhaul Period and Refueling, or LOP(R)) and let the dry docks decay. So, instead of a refit taking two years, it takes four to five.

You cannot rotate four boats if two are functionally trapped in a crumbling dockyard in Plymouth. The politicians did not intervene because intervention requires capital expenditure; they preferred to quietly force the Royal Navy to absorb the risk on the balance sheet.

4. Can it be proven that the Royal Navy is at a drastically elevated risk entirely due to government decisions? Unequivocally.

First, there is metallurgical and mechanical reality. The Vanguard class was commissioned in the 1990s with a 25-year lifespan. They are now being pushed past 30 years. Running ancient pressure hulls, aging reactor cooling systems, and legacy life-support scrubbers on 200-day continuous cycles creates exponential mechanical fatigue.

Second, there is the human capital destruction. You cannot repeatedly subject highly specialized, nuclear-qualified engineers to six-month underwater incarcerations without destroying their family lives. The retention death-spiral in the submarine service is not a mystery; it is the direct, predictable outcome of Treasury penny-pinching.

The politicians delayed the replacements. The civil service botched the dockyards. And as a direct result, the Vanguard crews are now operating at the absolute outer edge of physiological and mechanical safety just to keep the Whitehall illusion of seamless deterrence alive.

Most headteachers who experienced an Ofsted inspection over the past year are considering leaving the profession, NAHT survey finds, with members indicating the new framework is worse than the one it replaced
tes.com/magazine/news/…

Our second set of booklist recommendations come from Brig. Shaun Chandler, Head of the @BritishArmy's Leadership, Education and Development Group (LEDG), concluding with a call for a study of how the Army learns (and sometimes forgets) history's lessons:
sahr.org.uk/view-book-list…

Sunday evening in Britain.

Millions of people are getting ready to do another 40 hour working week tomorrow.

Alarm clocks set.
Work clothes ready.
Lunches prepared.

And for what?

To spend most of their wages on rent, bills, food and travelling to work.

People aren’t asking for a millionaire lifestyle.

They’re asking for a life where working full time actually pays off.

How did we get here?

🫡

🌺 REMEMBRANCE SUNDAY | WE WILL REMEMBER THEM

On Remembrance Sunday, we come together in silence, reflection and gratitude to honour the men and women who made the ultimate sacrifice in service to our country.

Today, we remember those who lost their lives in two World Wars and se who never returned home. Those whose courage, commitment and sacrifice shaped the freedoms we enjoy today.

We remember the serving personnel, veterans and reservists who have stood, and continue to stand, in harm’s way. We remember the families who have waited, worried, supported and, for some, endured the unimaginable loss of someone they love.

And we remember that behind every name on a memorial is a life, a story, a family and a legacy.

For the Defence community, remembrance is more than a moment in the calendar. It is a responsibility to honour the past, recognise the service and sacrifice of the present, and ensure that future generations understand the price of freedom.

Today, wherever we are, whatever our connection to Defence, we pause.

At the 11th hour, on the 11th day of the 11th month, we remember. And on Remembrance Sunday, we stand together in gratitude and respect.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old.

We will remember them.

🌺 Lest We Forget.

#RemembranceSunday #LestWeForget #WeWillRememberThem #WomenEmpoweringDefence #DefenceCommunity #Remembrance

Two men in similar red coats, carrying the same musket. One was waiting for a vacancy at the officer's table. The other had already lost his place.

Swipe through to see how they lived, how they fought, and why so few of them got what they came for ...

Today, on #RemembranceSunday, we remember all those who served and died for our country.

From past generations to those who wear the uniform today, we honour their courage, dedication and service.

We will remember them.

#LestWeForget

The Bank of England has raised interest rates to 4%, supposedly to tackle inflation.

There is just one problem with this decision. The Bank knows that much of the inflation we are suffering is being driven by rising oil and energy prices, largely resulting from conflict in the Middle East.

It also knows that raising interest rates cannot reduce those prices.

So why is it doing this?

The answer is that the Bank believes it must suppress demand elsewhere in the economy to compensate for rising energy costs.

In other words, it is deliberately making mortgages more expensive, increasing business borrowing costs, discouraging investment and reducing household spending power.

And all this when people are already struggling with higher energy bills. That is problem number one.

There is, however, another problem. Higher interest rates increase costs for businesses, which can then feed through into higher prices. They can, in that case, add to inflation rather than reduce it.

The Bank is imposing economic pain to address a problem its chosen policy cannot directly solve.

That is not sound economic management. It is the consequence of an economic dogma that refuses to recognise the difference between inflation caused by excessive demand and inflation caused by supply shocks.

When will we learn?

The SAHR booklist is fast becoming something of an annual tradition, with historians and soldiers recommending their top 5 books on the British Army.
Kicking off this year's instalment we have this selection from Chapple Prize winner @KKriegeBlog: sahr.org.uk/view-book-list…

The consequences schools face following Ofsted inspections must change, Lucy Powell told MPs – and shared SEND reform timelines, her views on AI marking and plans for technical education routes
tes.com/magazine/news/…

Tesco profits shot up from £883m to £2.3bn.

​An extra £1.4bn+ in profit while families STRUGGLE to afford basic groceries.

​It’s not a cost-of-living crisis, it’s a cost-of-greed crisis—backed by government INACTION! 🛑

PLEASE TAKE OUR MONEY!
Are you a university student studying any aspect of the British Army, its reserve or auxiliary units, or Empire and Commonwealth armies? If so, visit our website to find the rules and guidance for our University Research Grants.
sahr.org.uk/university-res…

I don’t know many heads who enjoy trawling GOV.UK on a Sunday night.

There’s always something new — a framework tweak, a moved deadline, a “clarification” tucked into paragraph 2 of section 7.3 that you only notice when it’s already bitten you. Staying across all of it is basically a second job, and most of us are squeezing it into the gaps between everything else.

So we put together the Round-Up. It’s one page that pulls together the DfE and Ofsted changes that actually affect schools, with a plain-English line on what’s changed and what (if anything) you need to do about it. No wading through PDFs, no finding out three weeks too late.

Have a look when you get five minutes: headteacherchat.com/roundup

And genuinely — how are you keeping on top of it all at the moment? Always curious what works for other people.

This month's online talk, by Jonathan Davies, delves into the pre-history of the British Army to explore the role of the longbow in late-medieval and Tudor warfare.
7.00pm GMT, 26 November, open to members and non-members alike. Register for free at my.demio.com/ref/Kh1liS5a6c…

This week has seen the Officer Cadets of CC 263 complete one of the Sandhurst 'Rights of Passage' - Exercise LONG REACH.

Love the daily Google image on my screen!

Can somebody please explain why I'm paying income tax, National Insurance, council tax, fuel duty, VAT, sugar tax, capital gains tax, stamp duty, inheritance tax, dividend tax and road tax, all with money I've already paid tax on?

You earn it, they tax it. You spend it, they tax it. You save it, they tax it. You invest it, they tax it. You die, and they even tax what's left.

At what point does the government just admit they want a subscription to your entire existence?